


Quarantine

by WhatLocked



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Boredom sets in, Caffeine will get John through this!, Connect 4 no more, Domesticity, Domestics, Frustration, Gerard Butler is hot - there is no doubt about it., If those buttons keep straining they will pop, John can do this., John is fine again, John is not fine, John just wanted beans on toast, John's a doctor damn it not a..., M/M, Overdose, Quarantine, Sex, Sherlock Understands, Shooting holes in the wall, Sleep is Overrated, Smoking, Spring Cleaning, Stressed John equals Baker John, The Great British Bake Off, There are feet in the freezer, Twitters tweety little claws, Uno is not a friendly game., Unsuccessful wanking, flightless birds, john is fine, quiet nights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:01:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 14,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23735788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatLocked/pseuds/WhatLocked
Summary: “John, you are going to be locked in here with me for a minimum of two weeks while we wait for possible symptoms to manifest.  Do you not see that as high risk?”John didn’t have to think too long or too hard about that.  By then end of day four John was going to have smothered the man in his sleep.The boys have been quarantined.  This can’t end well, surely.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 92
Kudos: 145





	1. Monday - The Start of it All

~~~~~~~~~~

“Two weeks!” Sherlock's voice carried down the stairs, anger and frustration evident in every syllable. “You are surely jesting!”

There was silence as John stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up. 

“I’d like to see you try” came the much quieter but no less enraged growl from above. Only Sherlock’s response, so phone call then. John shook his head and made his way upstairs. God only knew what he was going to find once he stepped foot inside the flat, what with Sherlock already being agitated, and just after the closure of a good case last night, too. 

“Mycroft, don’t you…. _ Fucking bastard _ !”

John stopped. Sherlock never swore. Well, very rarely. Whatever had got him in a state must be serious indeed. 

“Family feud?” John asked chirpily, entering the room, hoping facetious would help soften his flatmates ire. He was wrong.

“No!” Sherlock snapped, throwing himself into his armchair, his fingers tapping out a frantic, nervous beat on the arm rest. If John didn’t know any better he would think that Sherlock was craving a nicotine hit but the three patches on his arm told another story. “Virus feud.”

John opened his mouth to ask Sherlock to please clarify but then his earlier words came back to John.  _ Two weeks! _

‘ _ Fuck _ ,’ he thought.

“Yes,  _ fuck _ , indeed” Sherlock snapped, clearly reading the expression that must surely be on John’s face. 

“How? ” John asked. “We haven’t been around…”

“The man you tackled to the ground last night” Sherlock growled. “He is a confirmed case. He was supposed to be at home, isolating himself but instead, took his time off of work to break into vacant businesses.”

“Fuck” John groaned again. He quickly tried to run through all the people he had been in contact with since. Fifteen patients, three co-workers and one chatty taxi driver who was convinced this was the end of the world. Thankfully, Mycroft had had the foresight to Send Rosie on a holiday to the countryside with the Holmes parents just as this pandemic was hinting at being a real big problem. 

“Mrs Hudson has been whisked away to somewhere relaxing and warm” Sherlock said, interrupting John’s thoughts and John instantly felt bad for not automatically thinking of their 81 year old landlady. “Thankfully she was still salty with me for damaging the curtains in her kitchen yesterday and refused to bring tea up this morning. You and I are officially on lock down.”

“Fuck” John swore for the second time, pulling his phone out of his pocket. It took only a few minutes to call Sarah and explain what was going on. She thanked John and assured him that she would inform the patients and workers on his behalf. John thanked her and hung up and then called the taxi company and gave them the pick up and drop off address and the time of delivery. They could narrow the rest down.

John sank into his chair. It had been a long day. He hadn’t realised it until now. “So” he said, looking around the flat. “Two weeks.”

“Apparently” Sherlock huffed out. “Because my idiot brother won’t pull resources and get testing kits for us.”

John raised an incredulous eyebrow. “You do know they are scarce - like nationwide shortage scarce - and they are trying to use them for high risk patients, yeah?”

“John, you are going to be locked in here with me for a minimum of two weeks while we wait for possible symptoms to manifest. Do you not see that as high risk?”

John didn’t have to think too long or too hard about that. By then end of day four John was going to have smothered the man in his sleep. 

“Maybe you should try again. Surely you can bribe him with something.”

Sherlock scowled. “I tried. I offered to take our parents on a ‘ _ family holiday _ ’ this summer. He declined. He said that this would be a good time for self  _ reflection _ and I should be thankful for two weeks of  _ relaxation _ .” Sherlock sneered the last word as if relaxation was the cause of all of his woes. 

“You’re brother is an idiot” John stated, knowing damn well that there was not going to be any relaxation for the next two weeks. Not with Sherlock being caged up inside Baker Street for fourteen days.

“That’s what I have been trying to tell everybody my whole life.”

John rubbed his hands over his face. He was a grown man. He had been a captain in the army. He had seen eight years of medical school and had grown up in a house with Harry. He could see out two weeks with Sherlock Holmes. He just needed to strategise. He could do this. 

~o~

Surprisingly, the evening had gone well. Sherlock had busied himself composing depressing music as he glared at the skull on the mantel and John had finished reading the novel he had started over a month ago. 

There had been a face-time call with Rosie who had babbled on about a sheep that had made a home in the Holmes’ backyard. So far, after two and a half weeks already, she wasn’t missing John or Sherlock. Sherlock informed John it most likely had to do with the fact that his father made a habit of smuggling sweets when their mother wasn’t looking. 

After that, John had managed to convince Sherlock to eat by not offering him food and then pretending not to see the man nick bit’s and pieces off of John’s plate as they sat on the couch and watched reruns of QI. 

“Well, that’s me done for the day” John said after the fourth episode’s credits ran. “I'm in for a shower and then off to bed.”

Sherlock just let out a non-committal hum and flicked the TV off. 

“You should probably try to sleep too,” John advised, standing up and grabbing his plate. “If we do have the virus, we need to try and keep our immune system as healthy as possible and that includes sleep, Sherlock.” 

“Yes, John” Sherlock replied sarcastically and John reminded himself again that he could do this. He would just have to be creative in distracting Sherlock. And maybe contact Mycroft to come and remove his gun from the flat. 

“Night, Sherlock” John called, making his way to the bathroom, depositing the plate in the sink on the way. The dishes could wait until tomorrow. There was no reply from Sherlock, but as John made his way back through the living room after his shower, he did note that Sherlock was nowhere to be found. John saw his coat was still hanging up with his scarf, so assumed that Sherlock had taken himself off to bed and had not, indeed, left the building and thinking no more on the subject, he made his way upstairs and into bed. 

This was manageable. He was going to get through this in one piece and still sane. And he was going to do it without letting Sherlock know that since he had moved back into Baker Street his  ~~infatuation~~ crush he had harboured for the man and had managed to bury years ago had resurfaced with more gusto than before. 

It was going to be fine. He was going to be fine.


	2. Tuesday - Day 1 of the Quarantine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day one goes smoothly. Nothing to worry about. Everything is going to be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters today because they aren't very long.  
> Hope you are all staying safe, well and sane whether you are in lock-down or not.  
> Thanks for reading and have a great day!  
> NTW

~~~~~~~~~~

John could not thank Lestrade enough. Despite the man being on his own lockdown, he had arranged for some old cold case files to be delivered to Baker Street. 

When Sherlock had finally dragged himself out of bed, sometime after 11 o’clock, he took one look at the five boxes and had immediately immersed himself in The Work. John had made sure there was tea and finger foods close by at all times and Sherlock, not realising he was doing it, kept his calorie intake up by subconsciously picking.

This gave John time to finish a few of his incomplete blog entries.

That evening, after wishing his daughter sweet dreams over the phone, John cooked dinner and sat down to watch the latest Star Wars movie. 

After about 45 minutes, Sherlock dragged himself away from the case he had been working on all day and sat next to John for no other reason than to pick apart the plot, acting and directing of the movie. He sat on the couch in a way that anytime John didn’t react to one of his comments, he could nudge John’s thigh with his long, bony toes. John found that he didn’t mind at all. 

After that, they watched a documentary on Charlie Cahplin and then it was off to bed. John mentally congratulated the two of them for getting through a full day with no dramas. Now, there were 13 more to go. 

He could do this.


	3. Wednesday - Day 2 of the Quarantine

~~~~~~~~~~

Sherlock had finished the case he had started the previous day and had moved onto the second case. John continued working on his blog. He still had three cases he hadn’t completed writing up. He was determined to have them all done by the end of the week.

Lunch time saw a delivery of food, presumably sent by Mycroft, judging by the poncy brands. Sherlock didn’t even acknowledge the delivery, let alone offer to help John put it away and John felt it best not to stir the sleeping bear. 

After lunch, John finished up the blog entry he had been working on and Sherlock was frantically typing away on three laptops and two mobile phones. John had asked what he was doing but the explanation had made no sense to him so he had left Sherlock to it and instead, played a game of Yahtzee by himself. He gave up after getting a depressingly low score for the third time in a row. 

The evening was once again spent chatting to Rosie and cooking dinner. Once again, Sherlock stopped what he was doing to come and watch the movie John had selected. Tonight, it was Monty Python and the Holy Grail. John tucked away the sound and image of Sherlock laughing at the French Taunters and the Black Knight.

Once again, the men parted ways for the night; John to the shower and Sherlock to his room.

After his shower, John wasn’t very tired, so he sat in his chair and started another novel. By the time he felt he was tired enough for bed, it was quarter past two in the morning and he silently went up to his room and slid under the blankets, congratulating himself on another day of no upsets.

  
  



	4. Thursday - Day 3 of the Quarantine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lock-ins are a perfectly good excuse for a spring clean.

~~~~~~~~~~

John awoke early and cooked breakfast. And then cleaned the kitchen. 

By the time Sherlock stumbled out of bed, hair mussed and still sleepy eyed, the fridge was contaminant free and smelling of Lemon-Bam, the sink practically sparkled and there was not one unnecessary item on the benches. 

“Coffee?” Sherlock mumbled somewhat hopefully, ignoring John’s morning efforts and made his way into the living room where he flopped onto the sofa. 

John made the coffee and took it into Sherlock, who was sprawled face down on the couch. 

“Here” he said, placing the cup on the coffee table. Sherlock turned his head so he could see the cup. 

“Why does it smell in here?”

“What you are smelling is the absence of smell” John told the man, walking over to his chair and sitting down, his own cup of tea in hand.

“That makes no sense” Sherlock mumbled and sat up so he could pick up his mug. John ignored the pleasured moan that rumbled out of the man's throat as he sipped on the coffee.

“I cleaned, Sherlock. It’s no longer musty in here.”

Sherlock sneered at even the notion and continued to drink his coffee. 

~o~

The afternoon moved along quietly. Sherlock worked on his current cold case and John completed all of his blogs. 

That night there had been no phone call with Rosie because she had apparently had an exhausting day and had fallen asleep rather early. 

They watched To Kill a Mockingbird. Sherlock sat quietly through the entire film surprising John at the end by telling him that he quite liked that one. 

Again, Sherlock was in bed by the time John was out of the shower. John still wasn’t tired so he did twenty-five sit ups, then thirty-odd pushups. He then did lunges and squats and crunches and then repeated the whole process. Twice. By the time he was finished, he needed another shower and after that, he was ready for bed. 

As he fell asleep, he mused at how well Sherlock was taking the quarantine.

  
  



	5. Friday - Day 4 of the Quarantine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleep is overrated.

~~~~~~~~~~

John was on his third cup of coffee by the time Sherlock got out of bed. It was only 9:45 am. 

“How much caffeine have you ingested?” Sherlock asked curiously as he watched John tap his fingers on the arm of his chair. 

“Not much” John replied. 

“Hmmm” was Sherlock’s thoughtful response. 

Once breakfast was had and Sherlock was in the shower, John wandered downstairs. He looked at the front door, wondering if it was warm outside and then turned and headed towards Mrs Hudson’s flat. He tried the door. Unsurprisingly, it was unlocked. He went inside and checked to make sure the back door and the windows were secure and then perused her book shelf in the living room. Noticing an author he was familiar with, he plucked out the book ‘ _The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty_ ’ and, stopping to water her plants on the way out, he made his way upstairs, sat in his chair and started the novel. 

By page two he was starting to question his land ladies choice in literature. By page 14, he was questioning her character. John opened the book to a random page and read a few lines. Then he flipped closer to the back of the book and read a few more lines. After repeating this process a third time, he decided that it was the author who had questionable morals and closed the book and left it on the side table. 

It was then that Sherlock exited the bathroom with what looked like a blood sample and stopped to prepare a slide at his microscope.

“Seriously, you’re checking your blood?” John asked, ~~admiring~~ watching as Sherlock’s hands prepare the slide.

“What, and reading Mrs Hudson’s erotica is any better?”

John looked down at the book, not even bothering to question how Sherlock knew what he had been reading with barely a glance in his direction and conceded that yes, Sherlock was probably having a better time than him. 

Ignoring Sherlock’s assessment of his own blood, John opened his laptop and started composing an email to Harry. He was four paragraphs in when he decided that what he was doing was a terrible idea and he deleted the whole thing. 

Sherlock continued on with the last of his cold cases and John pulled out the chess board. Sherlock showed a passing interest as John set the pieces on the board and John informed him that hell would freeze over before he played chess with him again. 

Sherlock mumbled something indiscernible and turned back to his case-files and John smiled as he remembered Sherlock’s utter disbelief in finding out John was not only good at chess, but better than himself. He had demanded game after game, trying to figure out how John was cheating. That wasn’t happening again, so John set about trying to beat himself at chess. He won 3 out of 4 games and decided to call it a day since the sunlight in the room having decreased considerably indicated that he had been at it for a while now.

“Dinner?” John asked Sherlock as he passed by him into the kitchen. The man was sitting in John’s chair with John’s laptop opened to a chat room by the looks of it. 

“Mmmm” was Sherlock’s non-committal reply and John took it as a yes and went about preparing a risotto while he talked to his daughter. 

As they ate, John laughed at Eddie Murphy’s antics in Beverly Hills Cop 2. Sherlock did not laugh once. He went as far as stating that it was possibly the worst movie he had ever had the displeasure of watching. After that, Sherlock worked on his cold case and John read his book. As ten thirty rolled past, John went and showered and when he came out, Sherlock was in bed. Still not tired, John turned the TV back on and flipped through the channels until he came across an episode of Red Dwarf. He figured he would go to bed after the episode. 

After two more episodes, John figured BBC were running a marathon and figured one more episode wouldn’t hurt. 

The marathon ended at 6 am and the first tendrils of sunlight were starting to tint the outside sky so John figured there was no point in going to bed. 

A strong cup of coffee would shake the lethargy that was starting to creep in.


	6. Saturday - Day 5 of the Quarantine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baking, Gerard Butler and an unwanted, late night conversation.

~~~~~~~~~~

John spied the tin of flour and the tub of cocoa powder as he was getting out a fresh box of teabags after breakfast. He thought a chocolate cake would go down a treat and got the ingredients he had memorised from childhood afternoons when his mum was sober enough to bake.

As the cake was baking, he decided that he hadn't had homemade biscuits for a while and went online to find a recipe. Ten minutes later he was whipping up a batch of white chocolate and macadamia biscuits. 

By the time Sherlock got up, John had made four different types of biscuits, three more cakes and a pavlova. He had put in an online order at Tesco for more supplies to be delivered that afternoon. 

Sherlock said nothing, but swiped a ginger nut biscuit from the tray and made his way into the living room and let John carry on while he tried and figured out the last cold-case file that Lestrade had sent over. 

Lunch was a achoice of home made pasties or homemade sausage rolls. Sherlock didn’t care, so long as he didn't have to prepare it. John continued to bake as Sherlock temporarily gave up on the case and instead played something calming on his violin, stopping every now and then to jot something on the sheet on his music stand. John hadn't heard it before and assumed Sherlock was composing again. 

Once lunch was over, John cleaned up the mess and then, on cue, his grocery delivery arrived. Once he unpacked it, he made a mess again, starting with a salmon tart and following on with three quiches and a large batch of empanadas. 

Once it was all cooked, he realised that their freezer wasn’t large enough to hold it all, not unless he removed the feet that are in the bottom draw. He didn’t even get as far as opening the draw before Sherlock’s playing screeched to an ear-bleeding halt. 

“John Watson, if you even think about touching those feet or the bag of spleens in the freezer, I will make the following nine days the most unbearable days of your life.”

Slowly, John closed the freezer door and decided he could probably check Mrs Hudson’s freezer as he had no doubt that Sherlock could very well make this experience truly and utterly unbearable.

After a quick phone call to his daughter, John found a deck of cards and laid out a game of solitaire. He was three games in when he heard a sound come from the other side of the room. It wasn't an unusual sound, in fact, it was a very familiar sound. What was odd was the location it was coming from. 

“Hungry?” John asked as Sherlock’s stomach rumbled for the second time.

The look on Sherlock’s face, as John looked over at the other man, laid out on the sofa, a file held arms length above his face as he read through it, was enough to tell John that he didn’t appreciate his body’s betrayal. The third grumble told John that, yes he was indeed hungry. 

John packed up the cards and then went and made up a salad while the salmon tart heated up in the oven. 

By the time dinner was ready, Sherlock had put away the file (well, he had dropped it on the floor next to the couch) and was sitting on the couch waiting for John.

“Here you go,” John said, handing him a plate and settling on the couch next to Sherlock.

There was silence while John found something to watch and then the two men sat back and watched  _ Gamer _ , with Sherlock picking the movie to pieces and complimenting John on his cooking while John tried to both ignore the complaints and bask in the compliments.

“I quite like Gerard Butler,” John said as the man got ready to take it out on Michael C Hall.

An undignified  _ pffft _ , sounded next to him. “What on earth for?”

John shrugged. “Well, he's hot and he’s a good actor. Haven’t yet seen a movie of his that I didn’t like.”

“Oh, please. He’s a naff at best.”

At this, John choked on the saliva he had been swallowing. “Did you just call someone  _ naff _ ?”

“Problem” Sherlock asked, his haughty offended persona dropping into the conversation.

“No,” John replied quickly. The last thing he wanted was a sulky Sherlock. If that happened, it could last the remainder of their lockdown. “It’s just, I never expected you to describe someone as naff.”

“Well, he is” Sherlock stated firmly and the two of them sat back and watched the remainder of the movie in silence.

~o~

John had only just fallen asleep when he was awoken by the sound of his door slamming open. 

“ _ What the… _ ”

“Did you say that Gerard Butler was  _ hot _ ?”

John blinked, looked at his clock and blinked again. “Sherlock, it’s two thirty in the morning.”

“Well observed, now answer my question. Did you say the actor in the movie was hot?”

John really had no idea what Sherlock was on about and he had to do a long, hard think about what it was they had watched. 

“Wha’...yeah, I guess,” he said, vaguely remembering the conversation from five hours ago.

“No guessing about it. Your exact words were ‘ _ Well, he’s hot. _ ’”

“For fuck...Sherlock, if you know my exact words, then why is this conversation happening?”

“You’re straight.”

John sighed. It was two bloody thirty in the morning and John hadn’t slept the night before. 

“Sherlock. Go away.”

“But…”

“OUT, SHERLOCK!”

John heard a loud inhale, followed by a loud exhale coming from the direction of Sherlock’s silhouette. It was an indication that the man was not happy about having to back away but he would do it because pissing John Watson off just after waking him unnecessarily was a bad move.

“Shut the door,” John said as he laid back down and tried to get comfortable again.

The response he got was Sherlock turning and taking himself back downstairs.

“Oi, wanker” John called out. “The door.” 

A few seconds later, John was cursing Sherlock Holmes as he got out of bed to shut the bedroom door before climbing back into his own bed and going to sleep.

When he woke up the following morning, he didn’t feel like he had slept at all. 


	7. Sunday - Day 6 of the  Quarantine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uno-no-no-no!

~~~~~~~~~~

Sherlock was acting weird. He had spent the morning looking at John like he was a particularly frustrating case to solve. 

“What?” John asked as Sherlock had stared for five minutes straight.

“Sorting data” was the reply that John got from the man across from him. 

John went back to ignoring him. 

Half an hour later it was still disturbing. John was going to have to find something to occupy the both of them. 

~o~

“Sherlock, you can’t place a reverse on a draw four” John said, sliding the card back towards Sherlock.

“Of course you can. It means _you_ have to pick up the four cards. That is how the game works” Sherlock replied, sliding the card back on top of the pile. 

John bit the bottom corner of his lip, Swearing wasn’t going to help this situation. It wasn’t that he was unaware of house rules but Sherlock seemed to be making them up as he went. 

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.”

“It’s not.”

“It is.”

“Not.”

“Is.”

John ended up picking up the four extra cards and informed Sherlock that there would be no more introductions of new house rules. 

~o~

“Sherlock, you can’t use skip to get out of picking up the cards.” Sherlock had copped four draw-2’s in a row and was now laying a skip card to get out of picking up eight cards. 

“Of course you can,” Sherlock scoffed. “Everyone knows that.”

“Nobody knows that,” John explained. 

“No, you didn’t know that. Everyone else did. I skip the turn, I don’t need to pick up the cards.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You do.”

“I don’t.”

“Do.”

“Don’t.”

John had his next shot without Sherlock picking up the cards. 

~o~

“John, I don’t think that is how you play the game” Sherlock stated as he looked down at the cards littering the sidewalk below. 

“HOW WOULD YOU KNOW!” John shouted. 

“Clearly, John, I am familiar with the rules of Uno.”

“Nope. You are familiar with something, but it sure as hell ain’t Uno. And, my god, I have never known someone to lose so ungraciously.”

“Says the man who just threw the entire deck of cards out of the window. Plus, I didn’t lose so therefore could not have lost ungraciously.” 

“Of course you didn’t fucking lose” John was yelling again and even to his ears it was a bit hysterical. “You made up a new fucking rule every time something didn’t go in your favour.”

“I was following the…”

“...rules made up in your own head!”

“They are called house rules.”

“No, they are called Sherlock is a fucking child, rules.”

“Again, says the man who threw the entire deck out of the window.”

John threw his hands up in exasperation. This was pointless. So he didn’t have to look at his infuriating flatmate anymore, he went downstairs to water Mrs Hudson’s plants. He stayed there for an hour.

~o~

After the Uno incident, Sherlock seemed happy to keep to himself as he immersed himself in the cold-case that had been giving him trouble the last day or so. 

John set about cleaning the bathroom and doing a load of laundry. When he came back upstairs, Sherlock was immersed in his mind-palace. The rest of the afternoon was spent like that; John carrying out small domestic duties while Sherlock came in and out of his own head, trying to find the piece that would link the case together. 

Just after six, John called Rosie while he set about preparing stir-fry for dinner. He felt a pang of longing as she told him about all that she had done with the Holmes parents. When he hung up the phone, he told himself it was for the best. Just until this virus had passed. She was safer.

When the meal was ready, Sherlock was too preoccupied with a series of photos that he didn’t hear John tell him that the food was ready. Knowing it was a lost cause to try and get the man’s attention, John placed the bowl of stir-fry next to Sherlock and then headed back into the kitchen to eat his own dinner. 

It was as John was drying up the last of the dishes that he heard a triumphant cry come from the living room followed by Sherlock yelling, “I knew it was the sister-in-law, I just had to find the right piece of evidence!” 

A few minutes later, he walked into the kitchen, shoveling food from the bowl into his mouth.

“Last case,” John stated.

Sherlock nodded, his mouth full of food.

“You’ll have to find something else to do tomorrow” John pointlessly pointed out. Sherlock would be well aware that his lock-in entertainment was over.

“I have the feet in the freezer” he said around a mouthful of food and it occurred to John that Sherlock was eating with more gusto than usual. 

“When was the last time you ate?” he asked as he watched Sherlock shovel his mouth full again. 

“Dinner last night, why?”

“You’re normally a bit more dignified when you eat” John stated as he watched a noodle slap against Sherlock’s chin before the man sucked it up.

Sherlock shrugged and swallowed the mouthful he had. “Stop cooking and I’ll stop eating” he said and piled the last of the stir-fry into his mouth. 

It was then that John noticed that Sherlock had actually put on a bit of weight. It wasn’t much, but his cheeks weren’t so drawn and his shirt buttons weren’t as lax (not that they were very lax to start off with). 

John frowned. That was the last thing he needed. Straining buttons on Sherlock’s shirts. 

“Right,” John replied, purposely not looking at Sherlock’s chest. “Well, there are leftovers in the fridge if you want them” he said and then made his way into the living room where he picked up the paper and sat down in his chair and started to read yesterday’s news.

In the background, he heard the sounds of Sherlock moving about and eventually, he made his way back into the living room.

“Are we watching the telly tonight?” Sherlock asked, dropping onto the couch.

“Nope” John replied, rereading the headline on the page before him.

“Nope?” Sherlock repeated thoughtfully.

“Yes, it means no, in the negative, not happening” John clarified, trying to concentrate on the column before him, hoping that Sherlock would get the hint that, since he was still looking at the paper, that meant that he wanted to be left alone. 

The hint was unreceived.

“I know what it means. But why not?”

John shook the paper, trying to get his focus back on the article before him. “Because I don’t want to.” 

Without missing a beat, Sherlock asked “What are you going to do instead?”

John counted to three to eliminate any sarcasm or irritation from his voice. It wouldn’t do well to start a fight. “Well, I was trying to read the newspaper.”

“No you weren’t. You have been starting at the same diagram for the proposed update for the Redbridge roundabout for the past fifteen minutes.”

John blinked his eyes and realised that, yes, he had been doing that very thing.

“I’m just trying to figure out how the hell they actually made it worse than before” he said realising as he said it that it wasn’t a complete lie. The proposed ideas were ridiculous.

“So, still no movie?” Sherlock asked flatly, pulling John out of his musings. 

John let out a sigh. “Sherlock, if you want to watch something, feel free. You don’t need me to do it.”

It was Sherlock’s time to let out a sigh, his short and irritated. “Not really any point on my own” he grumbled and then stood up and went to his room. 

John lowered the paper and let out another sigh, this one more like a heavy huff of breath. 

Not even a week and they were beginning to crack. God, the next eight days were going to be hell. 


	8. Monday - Day 7 of the Quarantine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's boredom is starting to piss Sherlock off and Sherlock doesn't want beans on toast.

~~~~~~~~~~

John stood back and looked at his creation. Well, it wasn’t much of a creation. It took 2 minutes to assemble, if that. 

On top of the closed toilet lid sat two toilet rolls. Hanging out from between the toilet seat and closed lid was one of Mrs Hudson's pink slippers. The effect was a weird, pale looking frog staring up at him with it’s pink tongue sticking out. 

John gave a satisfied nod and walked out of the bathroom. 

When Sherlock came out of the bathroom for the first time that morning, he didn’t say anything. He just threw John an odd glance and then proceded to pull his phone out of his pocket and fire off text to someone, all the while, keeping his eye on John. John chose to ignore him and sipped his tea while he continued the crossword in the newspaper. 

~o~

John was bored. There was no blog to write. There was no housework to do. He had no room to store any more baking, plus Sherlock had commandeered the kitchen for his experiment. Mrs Hudson’s plants would die if he watered them any more and there was absolutely nothing on TV. 

At a loss of what to do, John wandered into the kitchen and plonked himself down on the chair across from Sherlock.

“Can I help you?” Sherlock asked after several minutes of John just sitting there staring at him. 

“I’m bored.”

“Hmmm” Sherlock replied as he made notes on a piece of heel he was studying. 

“What are you doing?” John asked after another minute or so.

“Charting the rate of frostbite on dead flesh” Sherlock replied and used a scalpel to slice off the tiniest bit of rotted flesh. John watched as he prepared a slide and slid it under the microscope. 

“You do know that environmental factors affect the rate and quality of frostbite” John supplied as Sherlock stooped to peer into the microscope. 

“Would you rather I wait until winter and then leave bits of dead body over London to get a more accurate reading?” Sherlock asked and John could hear the irritation he was holding back. Normally, Sherlock didn’t like to be disturbed at all during his little experiments but today, John didn’t care. He was Borrrred.

“You could just read up on the countless medical and forensic journals that detail the exact thing you are studying. You know what they say; there’s no point in reinventing the wheel.”

John watched as Sherlock closed his eyes and bit down on his bottom lip. It was testament to how much he valued John’s friendship that he was trying to curb his irritation at all. “I prefer a more hands on approach to research” he finally said after a while. 

“Or” John started, not sure why he was hell bent on making Sherlock lose his shit but he kept going anyway. “You are hoping to find something to prove them all wrong because you like to think you are clever.”

Sherlocks gaze snapped up from where it was looking through the eyepiece to glare at John. “I don’t like to think, I know. Couldn’t you possibly have your breakdown somewhere else?” 

John pretended to think about it. “Ummm, no.”

Sherlock was getting ready to say something snarky back, John could see it in the way his mouth was pursed, but just then, his phone rang.

“What, Mycroft” he sneered as he answered the phone. “What the hell do you think I’m doing...No...Oh, god - if you have nothing useful to offer then why are you even ringing me?...Piss off” and then the conversation was over, apparently with Mycroft and with John, as Sherlock went back to noting down what he saw through the microscope and ignoring John all together. 

No longer finding any amusement (if that’s what it could have been called in the first place) in bugging Sherlock, John stood up and walked over to the window and stared down at the very few people who were still walking down Baker Street. God, they were hateful. He turned back and headed towards his chair. As he walked past the table, his fingers stretched out and stroked over the strings of the violin that was left on the table.

John knew Sherlock could move fast, but at the moment, the man outdid himself.

“Find another way to entertain yourself, John” he said in a warning tone, the instrument now clutched in his fingers.

“Or what?” John challenged.

“You really don’t want to go there” Sherlock sneered and then turned and stomped away to his bedroom, taking the violin with him and slamming the door behind him.

“ _ You really don’t want to go there _ ” John mimicked in a childish voice and then sat down at the desk and opened his laptop. Maybe there was someone he could send an email to.

Several emails to Bill Murray later and John was mildly appeased. He hadn’t totally cleared his boredom but he had put a bit of a dent in it.

After about half an hour into his emailing, Sherlock had come out of his room and, without a word or a glance in John’s direction, had sat back at the kitchen table and had picked up where he had left off with his experiments. 

~o~

Later that night, once the table was free from all deceased flesh, Sherlock took over speaking to Rosie while John looked through the cupboards for something quick and easy to prepare for dinner. 

By the time Sherlock had finished talking with John's daughter and then had what sounded like a painful, yet very simple few words with his parents, he came into the kitchen where John was eating his serving of beans on toast.

“What is that?” Sherlock asked, looking at John as he forked beans into his mouth.

“Beans on toast” John replied once he swallowed his food.

“But, you said you were cooking dinner” Sherlock continued, still not moving from the doorway.

“And I cooked beans on toast,” John answered.

“John, that is hardly considered cooking. A child could make that. I assumed you were going to cook food, like, actual food.”

After the mood John had been in all day, this was clearly the wrong thing for Sherlock to say.

“What does it matter?” John practically yelled. “You don’t normally eat anyway. The only reason you have been doing it lately is because you are bored!”

“Wrong” Sherlock announced smugly.

“Well, then, you fucking cook” John seethed, finally reaching the end of his tether and he stood up from his half finished meal and took himself out of the kitchen and up the stairs to his room. 

Once he was in his room, he decided that he may as well try for an early night. Three quarters of an hour later, as he stared up at the ceiling in the dark, he decided an early night was a stupid idea. He wasn’t tired. What he was, was frustrated. 

When this usually happened, he often had a wank to help relieve the frustration so he tried just that. Fifteen minutes later, he decided that that too was a stupid idea and abandoned the attempt which left him half hard in his pants. For once, his pent up frustration wasn’t due to not getting a leg over (although, that hadn’t happened in some time either not that it didn’t constantly run through his mind with Sherlock flouncing around). This frustration was something different, something new and John wasn’t appreciating it at all. This was sheer boredom of the likes he had never felt before. 

John closed his eyes and tried to sleep. Nothing. All he was accomplishing was reminding himself that there were still seven more days of this! Seven more days of looking at the same walls and only communicating with people, other than Sherlock, through phone or email. It was looking at facebook posts of people doing things that weren’t at Baker Street. 

John was about to open his eyes, to just get up and go back down stairs when he heard it. It was faint, but it was there. The notes of the violin, the song Sherlock had been playing on Saturday, wafted up the stairs and into John’s room. The quiet notes filled his head and surprisingly, John seemed to calm and, listening to those notes make a soothing melody, he drifted off to sleep and stayed in a peaceful sleep for the rest of the night.

  
  



	9. Tuesday - Day 8 of the Quarantine

~~~~~~~~~~

John had opened a Twitter account. He didn’t know why, but he had. He thought it might be fun. The first thing he did was look up Sherlock’s account. He read through the posts, which were just as enthralling as his website entries only compacted into 280 characters or less. His replies to people leaving comments on his post were just as acerbic and John was actually gobsmacked to see that he had over 3000 followers. He had never seen so many masochists grouped together.

John hit  _ follow _ and then looked up other people he might know. Molly had an account that she detailed the life of her cat, Toby on. Mrs Hudson and Mrs Turner had quite the gossip happening between their tweets and Mike uploaded a lot of videos and links to medical journals. Harry hadn’t touched her account in over eight months. Overall, it wasn’t that exciting but John had decided he would give it a go, so he used his first post to send a picture of Sherlock.

Sherlock had gone to sleep with his door open and when John had stuck his head in to check on the man it had been to see Sherlock sprawled, face down on his bed, hair a mess and mouth open, drawling on the pillow.

“Not funny, John” Sherlock sulked an hour later, once he had dragged himself out of bed. The few laughing emojis his tweet had elicited from other users stated otherwise. 

~o~

“It doesn’t need stitches,” John declared, gently prodding the cut on the heel of Sherlock’s left hand.

“Are you sure?” Sherlock asked, pushing his hand closer to John’s face. “Have another look.”

“I don’t need to have another look, Sherlock” John stated as he did in fact have another look, just to appease the man. “I have been a doctor for over a decade. I know when a simple cut needs stitches and this doesn’t need stitches. Hold this in place” John said, holding a wad of paper towel over the cut. Sherlock placed pressure over the paper towel and John stood up.

“Where are you going?” Sherlock asked, looking up at John as if John had done something offensive.

“To get the first aid kit” John answered somehow managing to sound exasperated and fond at the same time. 

“Because it has a suture kit in it” Sherlock stated matter-of-factly. John resisted the eye-roll. Sherlock was convinced that the cut was deeper than it was and he also hated being wrong. John wasn’t backing down just so the man could have his ego stroked.

“No” John corrected, even more matter-of-factly. “Because it has antiseptic and steri-strips in it. Unless, of course, you want to be holding that paper towel on your hand until the bleeding stops.”

Sherlock let out a little disgruntled  _ harumph _ and John went into the bathroom and retrieved the first aid kit from under the bathroom sink.

“What were you doing, anyway?” John asked once he had returned and started carefully cleaning the wound. 

“Chopping tomatoes” Sherlock replied sounding rather disgruntled. 

“Sherlock, yesterday I watched you slice barely a centimetre of skin off a dead foot with almost surgical-like precision. How in the fuck did you manage to do this by simply chopping a tomaoto?”

“I was interested in what I was doing yesterday,” Sherlock stated. “Today, I got distracted.”

John looked to the counter behind him to see the mangled mess that used to be a tomato. John had no idea what he was doing with odd chunks of tomato but as a general rule, John didn’t think anyone who chopped food like that should be allowed anywhere near sharp instruments. It was no wonder he managed to get his hand.

“Maybe leave the food preparation to me, yeah?” John suggested as he opened up a steri-strip and used it to hold the edges of the wound closed.

“I do believe your exact words, last night John, were ‘ _ Well then, you fucking cook _ .’”

John winced. He had said those words. But he hadn’t actually expected Sherlock to listen to him.

“When do you ever follow anything I say anyway?” John mumbled as he applied a second steri-strip. He wasn’t exactly proud of how easily he had blown up the previous night and all over something as stupid as beans on toast.

“ _ If we do have the virus, we need to try and keep our immune system as healthy as possible and that includes sleep, Sherlock _ .” John recognised his own words, from a week ago, being parrotted back to him in a voice that was eerily close to how he sounded. “I’m not sure if you have noticed but I have been going to bed and to sleep, every night this week. Unlike someone else in this flat.”

“Oi, I go to sleep,” John protested.

“Judging by the bags that have been under your eyes and the pallor of your skin lately, I’d be estimating an average of three and a half hours a night, last night and the night you didn’t sleep at all not included. Tell me I’m wrong.”

John stared at him, willing himself to deny it, but he couldn’t. This past week he had been too bored, restless or anxious to sleep and when he had, his head had been filled with odd and sometimes disturbing images and scenarios. 

“Keep it dry and don’t pick at the strips” John said, changing the subject to something not directed at him as he placed the third and final steri-strip across the wound.

“Are they doctors' orders?” Sherlock asked sarcastically, clearly seeing John’s tactic of changing the subject for what it was. A refusal to recognise that he couldn’t follow his own advice. To be fair, though, doctors did make the worst patients.

“No. It’s common sense” John snarked back as he packed up his mess. Without another word, he returned the first aid kit to the bathroom and then went into the living room. 

Eight days and they were already sniping at each other pointlessly. If John, at least, didn’t find another way to redirect his frustration, then he was going to go mad. Certifiably insane. He opened today’s paper to the crossword hoping it might have some form of cryptic wisdom that would help him get through one more week of this. An hour and a half later he concluded that, no, there was no wisdom in the crossword. 

~o~

“What is this?”

John didn’t look at Sherlock as he slid the pile of yellow tokens over to the other man. “Connect four” he answered.

“It looks like a children’s game.”

“That’s because it is” John confirmed and pulled his pile of red tokens towards himself. 

“The premise is just like naughts and crosses except we are using red and yellow tokens instead of naughts and crosses and you need to get four in a row, not three.”

“And we are playing this, because.”

“I am bored and there are strictly no house rules in connect four.”

“You will still lose. We all know, John, that I am better at strategising and planning than what you are.”

“No you’re not.”

“I don’t believe you are going to make me prove it.”

~o~

“Well, that’s another game gone,” John said, looking out the window where connect four littered the pavement below him.

“It was a stupid, pointless game. You should be thanking me that it is no longer in our home.”

“I suppose checkers is out of the question, then?”

When John turned back from the window it was to find that Sherlock had left the room.

~o~

John checked his twitter account. Bill Murray had added him, but had said nothing. Molly had posted more antics about Toby and Mrs Hudson was gossiping about another lady who was staying at the same establishment as herself. Apparently Bertha was trying to pass off shop bought sponge cakes as her own. Oh, the travisty!

“Our landlady is a petty gossiper” John announced, locking his phone screen.

“It took you getting Twitter to come to that conclusion” Sherlock asked, not looking up from his own phone screen.

“I didn’t realise how bad she was. I’m just glad I’m not the topic of her conversations with Mrs Turner.”

“Check her history. September 13th 2019 ‘ _ The Doctor went on a date last night. She didn’t look very nice. Lamb and mutton come to mind. He needs to stop settling for cheap and easy _ .’ 

“Mrs Turner then replied with, ‘ _ Oooh, when will that boy realise… _ ’”

“Yeah, okay, I get it. Mrs Hudson and Mrs Turner are both nasty cows.”

“Loveable, nasty cows.”

“Loveable, nasty cows” John agreed.

He then reopened the app and scrolled through Mrs Hudson’s Tweet history. By the time he had finished, he wished he hadn’t.

~o~

“Why are you dusty?”

“Because I was in the ceiling.”

“Why?” 

“To see if there was anything interesting up there.”

“You’ve been watching American Pickers again.”

“They had back-to-back episodes. The show got boring, so I thought I’d check.”

“Find anything?”

“Apart from a dead bird - pigeon going by the size and shape of the skull - the frame of an old kitchen chair, pulled to pieces and a few old newspapers with nothing noteworthy in them, not a thing.”

“So, a wasted venture then.”

“It killed thirty-eight minutes.”

“Of course it did.”

~o~

Mike had posted a tweet of him and his wife sharing a bottle of red whilst watching King Kong.

Bill had tweeted that he just lost £50 to Williams in some pointless dare.

Molly had made three tweets detailing how cute Toby was when he slept, how he had made a mess with his cat biscuits and a photo of Toby in a mini sombrero. 

Mrs hudson had tweeted how the gentleman who brought her her lunch had a nice bum.

John tweeted one word. ‘Bored!’

~o~

“How is Rosie this evening?” Sherlock asked as he came into the kitchen, his eyes focused on whatever was on the screen of his phone.

“If you hadn’t run off, you could have asked her yourself.”

“Do you know how much I have spoken to my parents since your daughter has been with them? More than I have since you first moved in with me. I love your daughter, John, but I need to start drawing the line somewhere or else we are going to find ourselves there at Christmas again.”

At the sound of Sherlock saying that he loved Rosie, John’s stomach did this uncomfortable clenching thing that it did whenever he showed affection for John’s child and he took a few seconds from mashing the potatoes. Once everything in his gut had sorted itself out, he continued getting dinner ready.

“She had a boring day today and thinks that chooks are silly.”

“She is not wrong” Sherlock agreed and swanned off into the living room, not offering to help with dinner. Well, at least some things were staying normal. 

John took the prepared meals into the living room to see that Sherlock had organised a movie for them to watch.

As John was getting comfortable the movie started.

“Are you serious?” He asked, a forkful of curried sausages half way to his mouth.

“Do you not like the movie?” Sherlock asked, not sounding overly concerned if John liked his cinematic choices or not. “Gavin told me it would be a perfect choice for movie night.”

“You messaged Greg to ask him about what movie to watch?”

“Hmm, yes, why?”

“And he specifically told you to watch The Shining?”

“Yes. He said, the one with Jack Nicholson in it, not the other one.”

“Right, okay. Greg’s an arsehole.”

“I shall be sure to let Graham know the next time I see him.”

And with that, the two of them sat back, ate their dinner and watched a man go mad whilst in isolation.

~o~

“How do I undo Twitter?” John thrust the phone under Sherlock’s nose

“You have had your account open for less than 24 hours.”

“Yes, and it is boring and annoying. I keep getting all of these messages I don’t want. Mrs Hudson’s Tweets are disturbingly pervy and I don’t have the heart to tell Molly that I couldn’t give a shit about Toby. I keep getting recommendations for people I don’t know and look, Sebastian Wilkes is now commenting on my tweets.”

“And you’re not deleting your account yourself, because…”

“I can’t figure out how. It’s like they have trapped me in it’s tweety little claws. I cannot find an undo button.”

Sherlock took John’s phone, fiddled around with it for a few seconds and then handed it back. “Consider Twitter undone.”

“Cheers” John replied and then took himself off to the shower vowing not to use social media as a means of entertainment the following day. It was too disappointing when it did nothing to alleviate the boredom and frustration of being locked inside. It was also another platform for random strangers to comment on the relationship between him and Sherlock, that wasn’t actually there.

In hindsight, the picture of Sherlock in bed probably hadn’t helped on that front.


	10. Wednesday - Day 9 of the Quarantine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's not okay.

~~~~~~~~~~

John was on the couch, his feet up, pressed against the wall and his head hanging down where his feet should be. The coffee table had been pushed out of the way so he could see the TV from where he was. 

This was how he was watching the TV when Sherlock walked in after his shower that morning. 

“You don’t like the Great British Bake Off” Sherlock stated, a hint of what John, had he not known Sherlock at all, would have called nervousness in his voice. 

“That is because Mary Berry is a hag. An awful, awful hag” John replied dispassionately. 

“Then why are you watching it?”

“Because the batteries in the remote went flat.”

It took Sherlock less than two minutes to go to the kitchen, rifle through the second draw down and come back with two fresh batteries. 

“Here” he said, handing John the remote, new batteries inserted and back clipped back into place.

“Thanks,” John said, taking the remote and placing it on the floor next to his head.

There was silence between the two men for a while, as the awful hag crapped on about sponge cakes or flans or something pointless. 

“How long have you been like that?” Sherlock asked. 

John had no idea so he replied with, “Yeah.”

Again, neither man spoke for several seconds.

“You are going to get a headache if you stay like that” Sherlock informed him.

John shrugged his shoulder as well as he could in that position. 

“And you will get a crick in your neck and then be cranky for the rest of the day.”

John sighed. Sherlock was right. The bastard usually was. Slowly and with little to no grace, John dropped his legs to the side and then did an undignified roll of his lower half so his legs thumped to the ground next to him. He was in a twisted, uncomfortable heap and he couldn’t find it in himself to care. 

“It’s progress, I suppose” Sherlock mumbled and walked out of the room, frantically tapping out a message on his phone. 

~o~

John stepped back from the wall and admired his artwork. On the wall before him, over the drab blue wallpaper, were four cartoon representations of what the virus looked like, sketched out in crayons he had taken from Rosies art box. Four coloured orbs, red, orange, green and yellow, all covered in little nodules and each sporting a happily sinister face stared back at him.

John gave a satisfied nod at the image before him, dug around in his wardrobe for a few minutes and then pulled his pistol and a packet of bullets from the safe that was bolted to the bottom. It took him less than a minute to load the gun and he felt an immense sense of relief and satisfaction as he aimed the gun at the red orb and pulled the trigger.

BANG.

It only took one gunshot for Sherlock to come flying up the stairs.

“What in the  _ hell _ are you doing, John Watson?”

“Bored!” John declared and BANG, fired a hole into the green image on the wall. 

“I can’t go to work.” BANG.

“I can’t see my friends.” BANG.

“I can’t hold my daughter.” BANG.

“I can’t even clean the flat because I have cleaned all there is to clean.” BANG.

“There is nothing.” BANG. “To do.” BANG.

John didn’t notice how close Sherlock had got to him until he felt the other man's hands cover his and gently pry the gun out of his hand. 

“Mrs Hudson is not going to be impressed.”

“Mrs Hudson never comes up here.”

“I don’t often say this, John, but I think you need a drink.”

John couldn’t agree more and he turned around and walked out of the room leaving Sherlock holding the pistol and staring at the newly decorated wall. Each of the four coloured viruses now had two holes in them, perfectly impacting where John had drawn their evil little eyes . 

~o~

Sherlock had taken over the daily phone call to Rosie. He had told John that he had had far too much whiskey to be able to speak coherently to his daughter. 

John agreed from his place where he was sprawled, face down, on the couch. 

John listened as Sherlock spoke to his daughter, using the same serious tone he used with everyone else. He had a niggling feeling that he should be feeling guilt, or shame or, maybe hunger? -Who knew? - over the fact that he was too pissed to speak to his own daughter but the warmth from his last drink was far too comforting to feel anything negative. 

John was vaguely aware of Sherlock ending the call and a few minutes later a cup of coffee was placed on the floor, next to him. 

“Drink that and go to bed” Sherlock instructed and then walked over to his violin and picked it up.

As John thought that the idea of bed sounded quite sensible, the notes of the song Sherlock had been playing the past few days washed over him and lulled him to sleep, coffee left untouched. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would just like to say that, until I looked up the Great British Bake Off, I had never heard of Mary Berry. I have no idea if she is a awful, awful hag or not, but for some reason, John doesn't like her. In real life, I am sure she is lovely.


	11. Thursday - Day 10 of the Quarantine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smoking, sneakiness and sulking ensue as cabin pressure starts really taking its toll.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sleeping on the couch, at his age was always a shit idea. It left him with an ache in his shoulder and his lower back. That, paired with the headache from cheap whiskey was leaving John feeling pretty damn miserable.

Add that to the fact that he hadn’t left the house in 10 days and John was feeling like absolute crap.

Slowly, he sat up, rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked around. 

Sherlock was sitting in his chair, clad in his pyjamas and staring at him.

“Mycroft called.”

John knew he was in a bad way when those two words brought him a small sense of hope and joy.

“He has managed to get some kits and is going to rush through the testing for us?”

Sherlock frowned. “What, no. Of course not. Even if my brother does have spare testing kits stashed away somewhere, do you honestly think he would make this easy?”

John let out an unimpressed huff through his nostrils and slumped back against the back of the chair. Defeat. What he was experiencing was defeat. Ten days locked in one flat and he was done. 

“No, “ Sherlock continued. “He called to say that he had ordered another delivery of groceries. They should be here in the next hour or so.”

“And you felt the need to announce this because?” John asked, unsure why Mycroft was doing their shopping for them but more unsure about the fact that Sherlock was telling him about it.

“Because you’re the one who puts the shopping away. I thought you’d like to be forewarned.”

John sat on the couch, unmoving, non-verbal, just glaring at his flatmate. It took him a few seconds to parse through a choice of words that summed up exactly how he felt at that moment.

“You are an utter twat.”

Sherlock just half-heartedly shrugged in semi agreeance and John got up and made his way to the bathroom. He needed a shower. Maybe if he stayed in there long enough he’d dilute into a puddle and slide down the drain.

~o~

“Sherlock, where is my gun?” John asked, walking into the living room where the other man was trying to unpick a padlock with what looked like a bobby pin.

“Mycroft has it,” he replied without looking up from his task.

“What do you mean, Mycroft has it?”

“Yesterday evening, after you passed out on the couch, I rang him and had someone come and collect it. After yesterday's antics, I thought it would be best.”

Finally Sherlock looked up to where John was standing, gun cleaning kit in his hand and glower on his face. 

“Looks like the cleaning will have to wait when you don’t have the urge to shoot things.”

“I actually didn’t before but I have a huge fucking urge to shoot something right now.”

“Then it’s a good thing Mycroft has the gun.” Sherlock threw a fake smile at John and then went back to unpicking the lock. 

John thought of three reasons why murder was a bad idea and went back up to his room.

~o~

John inhaled and felt the smoke fill his lungs. The burn was an old forgotten friend. He held it there for a count of five and then exhaled, a plume of smoke exiting his mouth and clouding in front of him briefly before being taken away by the wind.

He was just bringing the cigarette up to his lips again when suddenly, it was plucked out of his fingers. 

“Nope” Sherlock stated, flicking the cigarette over the edge of the fire escape.

John glared at the man for sneaking up on him and for taking away the one thing that was settling his nerves. 

“Where did you even get these from, anyway?” Sherlock asked, picking up the packet of smokes and ignoring John’s withering glare. 

“Found them in your top draw.”

It was Sherlock’s turn to glare at John.

“I did it while you were in the shower and, yes. I fucked up your index.” With those words, John squeezed past Sherlock and climbed from the fire escape, through the window and back into the hall. He turned back, just in time to see Sherlock toss an almost full pack of smokes over the edge and scramble in through the window as well. 

John ignored the lecture that Sherlock gave him about the effects of smoking and trudged down the stairs and into the living room where he plonked himself into his chair. He looked at the clock above the mirror and groaned. 

God, it wasn’t even midday. 

“You need a hobby” Sherlock unhelpfully supplied.

“I had one. You threw it out the window” John grumbled in response.

“John, not even I treated smoking as a hobby.”

“Fine. Got any cocaine?”

“No, you and my brother made sure of that” Sherlock snapped back and stalked out the room. 

John let out a heavy exhale. That was a low blow and completely uncalled for - Sherlock had every right to be pissed at him. He was just psyching himself to stand up and go and apologise when Sherlock stomped back in.

“Put these on,” Sherlock said, grabbing John’s arm and yanking up the sleeve of his jumper. Before John could react, Sherlock had slapped two nicotine patches on his arm. “And read a book or something calming. Whatever it is you choose to do, don’t involve me as I now have one sock index that needs to be completely reorganised.” He threw John one more scowl and then turned and made his way to his bedroom where, John presumed, he started reorganising his socks into a system that only made sense to consulting detectives.

~o~

John took Sherlock’s advice and set about finding something, if not calming, then less distracting to the other occupant in the flat, to do. The task that resulted was cross stitch. 

John had no idea why it was there, or who it belonged to but by the time he had finished he had different coloured wool, stitched in neat little rows and not at all resembling the cartoon penguin that was on the packet. 

“What sort of bird can’t fly, anyway” he grumbled down at the monstrosity in his hand and then flicked the frame, fabric and all, frisbee style across the room where it arced up and lodged itself behind the horns of the bison skull.

John rested his head back against the seat of the chair and closed his eyes. He needed a nap. Surely that would pass the time. Maybe if he sat there long enough he would eventually doze off.

John sat and listened to the sounds of the flat, the shuffling, bumping noises coming from Sherlock’s room, the sound of cars driving past on Baker Street, the sound of the buzzing in his ears. 

He winced. That wasn’t normal and was, in fact, quite irritating. He opened his eyes and gave his head a bit of a shake and wished he hadn’t. The room was spinning and he felt sick.

“Shit” he muttered. He must be coming down with the virus. 

Cautiously, John stood up. His goal was to make it to the couch, where he could lay down. That would be better. Laying down would surely make the situation better. He took two steps in the direction he wanted to go when the dizziness got worse. 

“Fuck” he muttered, bringing his hand up to his head, hoping to unrealistically still the motions around him. That was when he saw them. The two round, brown patches on the inside of his arm. 

Cursing and muttering, John peeled the nicotine patches off of his arm and flung them onto the coffee table. Between the two cigarettes he had smoked and the two patches Sherlock had slapped on him, John was now overdosing on nicotine. 

He made it to the couch and flopped down.  _ ‘At least this was something different _ ’ he thought as he closed his eyes. Within five minutes, he was asleep. 

~o~

The nap had done John good. He no longer felt sick or dizzy and, to top it off, a substantial amount of time had passed. 

Sherlock had not made another appearance, that John was aware of, since he had gone and reorganised his sock index. So, his index was a rather more complex system than John had originally thought or he was avoiding John. If John were placing money, he would place it on the latter. But that was fine. Clearly, the two of them needed some space. 

While he was making grilled cheese for dinner, John guiltily fired off a message to Mrs Holmes, apologising for missing Rosie’s nightly phone call. She assured him that all was fine on their end. Before this lock-down he hadn’t missed a single phone call. Not even when they had been working a case. Now he had missed two. 

He was doing a shit job at this quarantine thing. 

He needed to find something to reset his equilibrium. He needed to find a balance. He needed to look for the positive and hold out for four more days. That was all it was. Four more days. 

Now, if he could find away not to completely fuck up his friendship with Sherlock and stay sane that’d be great.


	12. Friday - Day 11 of the Quarantine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John gets pissy, Sherlock has had enough, things happen.  
> We all knew it was coming!

~~~~~~~~~~

John hadn’t found a balance. In fact, because he had spent most of the night thinking about, and not finding a solution to his problem, he was now more unbalanced.

So unbalanced that, not even two hours after being awake he had snapped at Sherlock for bouncing a rubber ball against the wall. Repeatedly. Surprisingly, Sherlock hadn’t had a snarky comeback and had placed the ball on the floor next to the couch where he was laying. 

~o~

An hour and a half later, Sherlock was playing his violin. The same piece, over and over again. He would get to a certain bit, play it, grumble to himself and then replay the whole thing, playing the last part just a bit differently and then stop, grumble and repeat the whole process.

After the tenth rendition, John snapped. Again. “Oh for the love of god. Play something different!”

Sherlock stopped abruptly and looked at John, his bow hand hanging by his side. “You don’t believe in god.”

“Jesus Christ” John shouted as he stood up and walked out of the living room.

“Him either” he heard Sherlock call as he mounted the stairs. God, what he wouldn’t give for another cigarette. 

Thankfully, the music didn’t start up again.

~o~

“God, what is that smell?”

“Decarboxylated lysine.”

“Why is it in the kitchen?”

“Where else would it be?”

“I don’t know? Maybe somewhere where I don’t eat!”

“You very rarely eat in here when Rosie is not home. You eat in the living room.”

“Oh, my god.”

“Counting to ten isn’t going to make the smell go away, John.”

“No - but it is going to stop me from ramming the bloody decarboxylated lysine somewhere quite uncomfortable.”

“Completely unadvisable. If you did that, an ambulance would have to be called. We would be exposed to more people, especially since there would be a hospital visit involved and then we would have to start this whole quarantine thing over again. So, unless you are secretly loving being locked up in Baker Street, then I suggest you do not ram the decarboxylated lysine anywhere uncomfortable. For the same reason, I wouldn’t suggest throwing the coffee pot at me either.”

“Fuck Sake.”

~o~

John couldn’t explain what was happening nor why but if he were being honest with himself, he couldn’t say that he minded. 

John had gone to the bathroom to use the toilet. What met him was an absolute mess. There was water, everywhere. Five sopping wet towels were on the floor, water had been splashed up the bathroom mirror and there were puddles everywhere.

John's first instinct had been to yell and to yell long and loud but instead, he took a deep breath and made his way over to the toilet. He would talk to Sherlock about this. Rationally. Like an adult. Then, after washing his hands, he stepped on the wet tiles and went flying back, barely missing smacking his head on the hand basin.

“SHERLOCK” he yelled, standing up, wincing as water soaked through his trousers. 

“SHER…”

“Yes John” the other man answered from the doorway, cutting John off, sounding utterly bored and not looking like he had noticed that John was now soaking wet.

“WHY?” John asked, his hands gesturing towards every wet surface in the bathroom.

Sherlock looked around the room before focusing his stare back on John, a questioning eyebrow cocked.

“Our bathroom is flooded…”

“...Hardly.”

“...There is not a dry towel anywhere…”

“...in the cupboard.”

“...And I just slipped arse over tit because the mat, that is there to stop us from slipping, is gone.”

“It’s under the orange towel.”

“Why?” John asked again, frustration seeping into every letter of the word.

Sherlock shrugged. “I could explain, but you will only get all angry and prickly and start yelling, so let’s skip that part and just get it out of your system. Yell away.”

John closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He took a deep breath in, held it and slowly let it back out.

“Please tell me you didn’t do this, just to piss me off.”

Sherlock stepped into the bathroom and stopped, just in front of John. He looked down at the shorter man, his eyes narrowed. 

“It seems, John, that I don’t even need to try in order to  _ piss you off _ . I can’t even read the newspaper without you going into a rant. Tell me, John, is there anything that I can do that won’t  _ piss you off _ ?”

“Anything” John yelled, his hands clenching into frustrated fists. “Anything that isn’t frustratingly annoying!”

It was here that things changed and John found himself wondering how, but not minding at all.

Sherlock surged forward and placed his lips over John’s. At first, he didn’t quite hit his mark and their noses smashed together, but the intention was there and it gave John enough time to realise what Sherlock was doing so that the next time he did it, angling his head the right way, he was more prepared and when Sherlock’s lips pressed against his own, he pushed back.

“That works,” John muttered, briefly pulling away from Sherlock's mouth. It didn’t last long.

From there on in it was all frantic movement. Sherlock tried to press closer but this threw the angle of his head way off, so John placed his hand on his chest and pushed, just a bit. Sherlock shuffled back and placed his hand over John’s and continued to kiss him. After a bit more heavy snogging, Sherlock pulled John’s hand down so it eventually covered the man’s cock, long and hard under his trousers.

Sherlock moaned and John realised, with a well timed twitch, that he too was hard. 

“Bedroom” he managed to pant out in between kisses. Sherlock’s reaction was to grab John’s shirt and yank, hard, until the man was trailing behind him, following him into Sherlock’s bedroom. 

It took seconds to shed their tops. John had kicked off his shoes and was shucking his jeans when he realised that Sherlock had stopped.

“Why have you stopped undressing?” he asked as he kicked his jeans across the floor

“Is this okay?” Sherlock asked, still not moving except to wave a low hand between the two of them.

John straightened up and stood in his underwear and socks and indicated to the bulge that was distorting the fabric of his pants. “Does it look  _ not _ okay to you?”

Sherlock sort of moved his hands and then stopped. “But, as you have stated multiple times, you’re not…”

“Bisexual, Sherlock” John said with a heavy dose of exasperation. “ Jesus, I thought you would have figured that out after all these years.”

“There’s always…”

“Will you just take off your fucking pant’s already?” John practically yelled as he bent down and pulled off his socks.

“And you call me bossy” Sherlock huffed, unzipping his trousers and stepping out of his shoes. 

“Sherlock” John started, standing fully naked now, with his hands on his hips. “I have been going out of my mind for the past ten days. To top it off, I have been trying to make sure you didn’t know just how much I actually did want this so now that you have let me know that you too want this, I would really like to get on with it.”

“You wanted this before?” Sherlock asked, his eyes not moving from John's groin.

“For quite a while, yes, now will you finish stripping.”

“Me too” Sherlock replied distractedly, still staring at John’s genitals. Without averting his gaze he bent each leg up to pull off his socks, one at a time and dropped his trousers. 

“Excellent, we’re on the same page” John confirmed, stepping forward and dropping the other man’s pants as it seemed Sherlock was too focused on John’s cock to be able to do it himself. 

This seemed to spur Sherlock into action and once more, John found himself being snogged within an inch of his life as Sherlock grabbed onto John’s shoulders and held on as if he were never going to let go.

This kiss was uncoordinated and probably too wet but John didn’t care. It was too many days of frustration and too many years of pining for anything even remotely resembling finesse. 

Sherlock pushed forward and John stumbled back, pulling Sherlock with him, until the back of his knees hit the mattress. From there it was a scramble of limbs as the two men arranged themselves on the bed. There was a bit of disarray as each of them tried to read what the other was doing, legs and arms clashing as they tried to manoeuvre themselves under and around each other in a way that would work. 

Eventually, John found himself on his back, with Sherlock trailing hot kisses down his torso. 

“You know, you could have made your interest known earlier. We could have been doing this last Tuesday.”   
“And you could have clearly defined your sexuality when we first met and we could have been doing this years ago” Sherlock added as he nosed along the crease between John’s groin and thigh.

“Like you can talk, Mister  _ Caring is not an _ ... _ Ow _ .”

Sherlock lapped over the bite mark on John’s hip that had brought their conversation to a halt. Now was not the time for talking. Even if John had wanted to protest, any coherent thought left his mind as Sherlock’s lips closed around the head of his cock and sucked.

“ _ Oh, god _ ” was the only thing that barely managed to pass his lips as Sherlock’s tongue pushed and wiggled against the tip before sliding his lips further down John’s shaft only to slowly pull up again.

Without thought, John’s hands made their way to Sherlock’s head and exerted just the slightest bit of pressure as his fingers curled into the curls under his palms. Sherlock’s response was to moan (which John felt all the way down his cock, causing him to gasp) and to take the length of John’s cock in his mouth again, moving all the way down until his nose was nestled in the thatch of silvery blond curls at the base. He swallowed a few times, causing John to curse and his legs to shake as he tried not to thrust further up into Sherlock’s mouth. 

As he pulled back off, he stopped half way and, again, swallowed around the length that was in his mouth, alternating between soft and hard sucks, bobbing his head on slightly. 

It was as Sherlock’s tongue slid up and pushed against his frenulum that John lost all resolve and started thrusting, trying to push deeper. If Sherlock minded, he didn’t show it. Instead, he doubled his efforts and brought his hand up to gently fondle John’s balls, stroking and pulling and squeezing in time with the movements of his mouth. He alternated between sucking hard and sucking soft. Sometimes he would go deep, other times keeping it shallow. 

It didn’t take long for John to become a hot, panting mess, incapable of coherent thought or speech so when he felt himself right on the edge, all he could get out was a ‘ _ Ngggh...hhmmmmm _ …” and a slight tug on Sherlock’s curls. Either Sherlock didn’t get the message or he didn’t care because two more hard sucks later, John was coming down his throat and Sherlock was swallowing the lot of it. 

“Fuck, Sherlock” John gasped, once he was able to form words once again.

“Won’t last that long - maybe next time” Sherlock answered, his voice much breathier than normal as he knelt up between John’s thighs, his hand flying over his cock. John was having none of that. Not after the spectacular blow job he had just received from this wonderful man in front of him. 

He pushed himself up into a sitting position and, batting Sherlock’s hand away, took the other man’s penis into his own hand and started stroking. Long, slow strokes to start off with, twisting his wrist on the way up and running his thumb over the head. 

Sherlock’s head dropped back and a low, needy moan escaped his throat, his hands gripping his thighs as John’s strokes sped up. It wasn’t long before his hips were jerking in time with John’s hand and after another minute or so a loud cry left his mouth as his body went rigid, warm come spilling over John’s fist. 

John was mesmerised by the sight before him as he watched his best friend slowly come down from what appeared to be a fairly intense orgasm brought on by John. 

“Oh, I needed that” Sherlock murmured as he slumped forward, knocking John back onto the mattress and sprawling on top of him. 

John let out an ‘ _ Umph _ ’ as the heavy body landed on top of him but that was as far as his complaints went as he manipulated them both into something a bit more comfortable but not before wiping his hand clean on the sheet next to him.

“I think it’s safe to say that I found something that didn’t frustratedly annoy you” Sherlock announced after a few steady breaths, his face turning away from John’s shoulder as he spoke.

John chuckled over the top of Sherlock’s head. “Yes, you certainly did.”

“And it’s much better than smoking.”

“Much better” John agreed, a content smile on his face as his fingers came up to twist in Sherlock’s hair.

They would lay like that until Sherlock got restless and John’s shoulder started to get stiff and then, they would go for another round because both of them thought it was better than risking getting bored and frustrated. That, and it had been far too long coming. 


	13. Saturday - Monday - Days 12 - 14 of the Quarantine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are looking up inside 221 B Baker Street. All is fine again.

~~~~~~~~~~

The following days sort of blended together. It was a haze of shagging, showering, sleeping, talking to Rosie, eating, and then fucking. 

There were hand jobs in the shower, frotting on the couch and mindless rutting in the hallway. John discovered how glorious Sherlock looked, naked and bent over the kitchen table and Sherlock received the best blow job of his life on the stairwell. At one stage, it occurred to John that he should be disturbed by the amount of stiff patches on the bed sheets, but then Sherlock distracted him by sticking his tongue in John’s arse and John forgot what a sheet was. 

There were quiet moments on the couch, where half a movie or a single episode of something simple was viewed, but it never lasted long before wandering hands distracted them from what they were doing and coaxed them into doing something else.

On Sunday, there was a game of poker but, as it was bound to do, quickly turned into strip poker which then quickly turned into Sherlock poking John, a broken chair and rug burns on both their knees. 

Sherlocks body was littered with bruises and marks that resembled the shape and size of John’s mouth. John’s back was scored with multiple scratch marks and his hips were adorned with fingerprint sized bruises. 

Both men had a slight limp to their gait and neither found it comfortable to sit for long periods of time, nor on hard surfaces at all. 

Both men were ridiculously happy and neither were bored nor were either of them concerned with what day it was or how long it had been since they stepped outside. In fact, outside could go to hell in a handbasket - John couldn’t watch Sherlock strut around completely starkers outside and Sherlock couldn’t demand that John go harder and deeper outside. Outside was overrated. 

Monday night the two of them were laying in bed, John encircled in Sherlock’s arms as the two of them listened to the quietness that surrounded them, barely there shadows danced against the darkened ceiling, whenever a car drove past. 

“I must say, this quarantine has turned out better than I anticipated” Sherlock said into the darkened room, his breath brushing over John’s ear and cheek.

“I didn’t think you’d last the first week,” John replied sleepily.

“Me?” Sherlock asked. “It was never going to be a problem with me. I can easily occupy myself. You, on the other hand...”

John burst out laughing at this statement. “Sherlock, you stated at the beginning of this that being locked up with you for two weeks was a high risk scenario. You get bored on a daily basis. You shot holes in the wall.”

“High risk for you, not me. You don’t do well, John, with being left sedentary, especially with the same person to keep you company. And while it’s true that I get bored easily on a normal day, that is because on a normal day there is potential for something interesting to be happening. I knew from the onset that that wasn’t going to be the case and prepared myself for it. I can sit for prolonged periods of time so long as there is something to entertain my mind.”

“And nicotine patches.”

“And nicotine patches” Sherlock repeated, to confirm the fact that he had gone through twice as many patches as he did normally. “You can’t, though. You need to keep your body active or you get restless. As for shooting holes in the wall…”

“It’s quite satisfying,” John finished off.

“I’m sure Mrs Hudson wouldn’t agree.”

“No. I’m sure she wouldn’t. Which is why she is noever going to find out.”

Silence met the room.

“She’s not going to find out, is she Sherlock?” John reiterated.

“I think Rosie is going to love having her own room” Sherlock said, his tone indicating that he was definitely trying to avoid the topic of conversation. “We could paint it pink. Or orange. She likes orange.”

“Sherlock!”

“Let’s just say, it’s probably a good thing you don’t have twitter anymore.”

“You dobbed me in?”

“You messed up my sock index.”

There was silence and then John laughed. He couldn’t help it. After a few seconds Sherlock joined in.

“God, we are ridiculous,” John said, his giggles eventually subsiding into nothing.

“Utterly absurd” Sherlock agreed.


	14. Tuesday - The First Day of Freedom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The quarantine is over...or is it?

~~~~~~~~~~

When the phone rang for the third time, John decided that he could no longer ignore it.

“Sherlock” he said, sleepily into the pillow, his hand flailing out behind him to smack his new bed-partner wherever he could reach him. “Answer your phone.”

Sherlock just grunted in response and John felt him moving, his arm swiping at the cupboard, before hearing the phone thud to the ground, still ringing. “It’s just Mycroft,” Sherlock said and by the sound of it, his face, too, was pressed against a pillow.

John wasn’t sure how he could tell as it was clear that the man hadn’t lifted his head from the pillow.

“The ringtone sounds smug, just like my infuriating brother” Sherlock said, answering John’s unasked question. 

John made a noise of acceptance and slipped back into a doze. The ringing stopped. 

It was probably an hour or so later that he woke to the sound of Sherlock tapping away on his laptop, or more correctly, John realised once he rolled over and cracked open an eyelid, John’s laptop.

“What are you doing?” John asked, deciding whether it was worth getting out of bed for a cup of tea or not.

Sherlock, again, answered that question by reaching over to the cupboard next to him and bringing his hand back with a cup of tea, offering it to John.

“Ta,” John said, moving to a sitting position and taking the now room temperature cup of tea. 

As he sipped, he looked at what Sherlock was doing. 

“As if you haven’t already absorbed every single shred of information about the damned virus by now. Why are you still looking up facts.”

“There have been reports, only a few, that the virus may take longer than two weeks to manifest. Three days ago there was a case in Germany and a week before that there was a case in Australia.”

“And you are looking into this, why?”

Sherlock dropped his phone into John’s lap, a message thread already up on the screen.

_ Since it seems the two weeks have passed without any incident it seems you and the good doctor are free men again. MH _

_ I have a case I would like you to pursue. You will be well compensated. MH _

_ What could you possibly be doing that would prevent you from answering your phone. It’s been at least four days since you charmingly told me what I could go do with myself. Surely you must be bored by now. MH _

_ Sherlock, CCTV surveillance outside your flat have not shown any movement from you or Doctor Watson. Should I be concerned? MH _

“It would be horrible if my brother were to come check on us and we accidentally infected him due to delayed reaction to the virus” Sherlock said, tying something at quick speed into his laptop.

“Devastatingly so” John agreed, cottoning onto where Sherlock was going with his thinking. “How would the country cope if the British Government were to fall ill?”

“Exactly. We are doing all of London, England even, a service by quarantining for at least another week.”

“At least” John agreed. 

With one final flourishing tap on the keyboard, Sherlock slammed the lid of the laptop shut and dropped the device onto the floor next to the bed.

“Now, how could we possibly pass another week shut in Baker Street together?” he asked, a wicked grin being thrown John’s way.

“How indeed?” John asked, a matching grin on his own face.


End file.
